On Tuesday, Miss E's class had a field trip to
"Pumpkinland." We've gone there for the past two years as a family,
so I knew it was a fun little place for the kids. Miss E wanted me to come
with, so I volunteered to help. I told her teacher that I would have my two
other girls, but I would be able to watch a couple extra. We were supposed to
be at the school at 8:30am, but of course, I didn't make it there with the
three of them until 8:45. Miss E’s teacher had assigned me two other girls from
Miss E's class, which was quite do-able, I thought. "Make sure you keep
track of the kids," she tells us. The kids, including Miss E, loaded up on
the bus at 9am, and I put my other two back in the car and we all drove up to
Pumpkinland. Miss M was not happy that she couldn't ride the bus with Yaya (Miss
E). But I wrangled her in. Then, as soon as we get out of the car, she throws a
fit again. But it's a screaming, nobody-can-understand-anything-at-that-pitch,
type of melt down, and all the other moms are there to witness it. I can't
spend 10 minutes reasoning with her, because I have to go get the girls from
the bus, because somehow everyone seemed to get there faster than me and Miss E
and her friends are staring around wondering if I forgot about them. Miss M,
still screaming at the top of her lungs is going back and forth between
pounding her fists on the ground in a tantrum and running after me, screaming
that I'm leaving her. I finally get her to calm down as we're walking into
Pumpkinland, but by now the two girls from Miss E’s class are paying no
attention to me. There is a short corn maze to start out the Pumpkinland
experience, so we head in. About 3 minutes into the corn maze, my diaper bag
starts sagging down and rubbing on the wheel of the stroller. I bend over and
figure out a way to keep it from falling down again, and by the time I look up,
the other two girls are gone. Disappeared. I look down every aisle and there is
no sign of them. I'm calling their names. Nothing. Miss E's calling their
names. Nothing. Great. I'm the mom who lost the only two kids she was in charge
of. I run into the teacher, and she's really nice about it, but I can tell
she's not going to trust me with kids on an outing ever again. We finally found
them at the playground that's all the way at the other end of the park.
Everybody is supposed to load up by 11, so at 10:40, I make them pick out their
pumpkin and stand by the bus, so we can't lose anyone again. Miss E is riding
home with me, so someone else can have the spot on the bus, so after the other
two are loaded, I get my girls in the car. As I'm loading, two buses from
another school pull into the parking lot. They are directly behind my car, but
I can't wait for two buses worth of kids to load up and get settled before I
leave, so I back out, slowly. Wham! I totally run into one of the buses.
Turning around, I quickly pull forward, but I see two women giving me the
"Oh wow!" look. I figure there is no way my car did any damage to a
school bus, so to avoid any more humiliation, I just pull out of the parking
lot. It's not until I pull into the gas station at Costco that I realize a
plastic covering on the back of my car fell off somewhere. I drove back when I
was done with errands and found it, thank goodness. But I am never volunteering
to help with Miss E's class again. Not if I have to take the other two girls
with me. Nope, not ever.
